What Does Numbers 16:23 Mean?
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “spake” also forms the word for “matter,” so this voice carries the very matter it is about to reveal.
THE MEANING
This sentence places you in the pause before the message unfolds: the voice addresses a hearer, and then the matter is spoken. Moses’ name carries the nature of one drawn out of water, so even the listener’s identity bears a story of emergence.
THE ROOT
דִּבֶּר
dibbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
speak; utter
“spoke” in this verse is dibbēr. This Hebrew root family carries both speaking and the sense of a word or matter. The voice is more than sound: what is spoken is the matter being brought into view.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: word; matter; thing
דָּבָר
The same root names both speaking and what is spoken, so the voice carries a matter rather than mere sound.
dibbūr: speech; utterance
דִּבּוּר
This branch names articulated speech and shows that “spake” belongs to a word-family centered on utterance.
מֹשֶׁה
mōšeh
GROWS FROM
משה
draw out
Moses’ name carries the nature of one drawn out of water. His name holds an act of emergence, making the identity of the hearer part of the meaning of this address.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: draw out
מָשָׁה
This verb gives the root meaning carried in Moses’ name.
mĕšîtihû: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form in Exodus 2:10 supplies the wordplay behind Moses’ name and preserves the image of being drawn from water.
THE PATTERN
A divine word reaches a hearer as an address before it unfolds as direction.
And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am.Your ears will hear and respond to a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," whether you turn to the right hand or to the left.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The Hebrew root behind “spake” also forms דָּבָר (dābār, “word; matter”). Psalm 33 shows this word in the making of the heavens, opening this brief address onto speech that carries and shapes its matter.
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